Berkeley Police Chief’s Son Lost iPhone, Drug Cops Went in Pursuit

Losing your iPhone is worse than losing your wallet these days, considering all the information we store on it. But does it require a 10-man police hunt?

Berkeley, Calif. Police Chief Michael Meehan and a crew of 10 police officers searched for his son’s missing cellphone on taxpayer dollars this January after it went missing from the boy’s unlocked locker at school.

After that, eight members of the department’s drug task force worked on overtime to track down the cellphone, which was equipped with the Find My iPhone tracking software.

The search was unsuccessful, but did succeed in stirring up more controversy for the police chief.

In March, Meehan sent a sergeant to a reporter’s home at around 1 a.m. to ask for changes to an online article, Inside Bay Area reported.

The city of Berkeley hired a San Francisco law firm to investigate the chief’s actions that night.

Another issue with the January incident is that no report was filed. “At minimum there should have been a police report. If a department is going to put people onto an investigation, they should have a police report,” said Michael Sherman, vice chairman of the Berkeley Police Review, according to Inside Bay Area.

A spokesperson from the department said it’s not “uncommon” for patrol officers to track a stolen phone if they get an active signal while on the streets.

In a statement sent to Mashable, the Berkeley Police Department wrote that the chief did not order an investigation, but the drug task force officers volunteered to help locate the lost smartphone.

If you walked into your local police department to report a missing cellphone and had the cellphone finder app, do you think the police in your area would jump on the case right away? Tell us in the comments.